Candidate Selection - Preface

Since being approached to be the Procedure Secretary for the Selection of a Parliamentary Candidate for Milton Keynes South, and now nearing the end of the process, I was just so unaware how much work was involved (Milton Keynes is only second to Corby who have selected Andy Sawford, the son of former Kettering MP Phil Sawford, as their candidate.)
It is a good thing that the Labour Party Head Office in Victoria Street is being more professional in the way it is undertaking candidate selections, and of course since our former MP Dr Phyllis Starkey lost the seat in the 2010 General Election (due to boundary changes) we no longer have the luxury of a trigger ballot, although the process so far seems to ensure fairness and accountablity not only by the Selection Committee but for the candidates themselves, this does mean so much more work for the Procedure Secretary and Regional and local Organisers (if a CLP has the luxury of having one.)
Somehow I have managed to cope alongside holding a full time job but would have been unable to with out the suppport of Kevin Wilson (Organiser) Dan Simpson (Regional Organiser) Ann Black (NEC Observer) and the Selection Committee chaired by Camilla Turnbull.
I do feel that the whole way of doing things needs to be revisited and to be fair to the Party our feedback has been asked for when the whole process has been finalised.
This is why I thought I would do blog entries to try (like I did for the 2010 General Election) to convey what it was like being a Procedure Secretary, it is no means detailed and I have only made entries for when substantial meetings or events etc took place.
I have not however written entries covering all the work involved as that would be too boring and too time comsuming for me to do, but I hope though that my entries at least are of intrest to political obsessives like me or politics students and maybe other CLPs about to start the process, I hope you enjoy!
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